


quiet

by leedeeloo



Category: TWRP | Tupper Ware Remix Party (Band)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-01
Updated: 2017-06-01
Packaged: 2018-11-07 13:50:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11060313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leedeeloo/pseuds/leedeeloo
Summary: Sung is lying in the backyard being Odd, so Meouch is investigating.





	quiet

There was a nice breeze that day, pushing a few clouds around the sky. Doctor Sung was staring up at it, limbs stretched out around him, fingers wiggling in the grass.

Meouch slowly approached him, curious. He’d never seen Sung be so still for so long, or even really be outside for this long. He didn’t say anything until he sat in the grass next to Sung, who acted like he didn’t notice.

“You alright doc?”

Sung thought about it for a moment. “Nah,” he said, “but I’ll perk up.”

They went uncomfortably quiet.

Meouch tried to just sit with him, but it didn’t feel right, felt like he should do something.

“Sorry,” Meouch muttered, “I should probably do something to try to cheer you up but I’m just-”

“Why would you try to do that?” Sung asked, cutting him off. 

Meouch was at a loss for words. “Well-”

“I told you I’d feel better.”

“Yeah, but at least I shouldn’t sit here and be a sad-sack! You’re really affected by that, I should-”

Sung snorted, almost laughing. “Really affected,” he repeated. “That’s funny.”

“You are,” Meouch retorted, defensive.

They went into silence again, and Meouch considered leaving. Just as he decided that yeah, he was gonna fuck off, Sung asked him something.

“Do you know what an empath is, Commander Meouch?”

The title and name combination meant a capital D Discussion was going to happen. He should’ve left when he first got the idea. 

“No, I don’t know what an empath is, Doctor Sung.” He obviously had some point to make, so Meouch was going to let him.

“Yes you do.” Sung shifted, folding his arms at the elbow, setting his hands on his chest. He was being weirdly smug. “And you know it means more than just being  _ affected _ by how people feel.”

“You know,” Meouch said slowly, carefully, “instead of starting on some asshole tangent, you could’ve just told me to leave you alone.”

Sung waved his hand in the air, brought it back down. “I don’t want you to leave. I just…” His arms unfolded again, hands twisting at the wrist. “I’m not alright right now. That’s all.”

Meouch scooted around in the ground, facing the same way as Sung, leaning back on his hands. “Like, not alright  _ how _ ?”

“Oh, I’m dying.”

Meouch sat up and leaned over, smacking Sung in the chest. “I’m being serious, asshole.”

“So am I.” His tone was light and jovial, like this was some poorly concealed joke. But this also wasn’t the kind of thing Sung would joke about; sure, he could make up some lie and have Meouch believing it for days before exposing his own hoax, but this felt different. 

He looked at Sung’s face, trying to figure it out. His eye was open as he was staring at the sky, an easy cheat sheet. Not that Meouch knew exactly what the different colours meant, but he knew what Sung usually looked like. 

He’d never seen him look like this.

It was  _ weird _ , made Meouch’s stomach twist. No distinction between Sung’s iris and pupil, except that there were no flickers of yellow in the middle. He assumed that the farther Sung’s eye colour got from blue, the worse it was, and near black with yellow seemed pretty damn far.

Suddenly, Sung glanced over at him, making him jump in surprise.

“Loneliness. I’m dying of loneliness, Commander,” Sung said before Meouch could ask.

“And you decided to speed it up by lying out here alone?”

Sung laughed; soft, embarrassed. “It looks that way, doesn’t it?”

Another lull of silence. Meouch didn’t even try to think of anything to say. He shut his eyes, tilted his face up towards the sky and let the light warm it. Maybe he was helping. Maybe Sung was being dramatic, in some sort of we’re-all-slowly-dying sort of way. 

Maybe this was the end of him and he just didn’t know what to do other than wait for it all to be over.

Sung raised his hand up. “There it is.”

“What?”

“Someone just drove down the back alley, and got out of their car. You can hear ‘em talking.” Meouch opened his eyes, looked over even though he couldn’t see anything. He had heard all that, was hearing it, but he didn’t really think about it. He couldn’t make out the conversation, so Sung couldn’t either, but there were distinctly two voices talking. 

“What about it?” Meouch asked when the voices faded, probably going inside.

“It helps shake the loneliness. People existing, it helps me.” Meouch nodded. It made sense, kind of. “And, before you ask, you guys are frankly too much when I get like this. And y’all get  _ worried _ , which is understandable, but it doesn’t help.”

After some more quiet, Meouch slid down, lying on the ground as well. He spread his arms out like Sung, the back of his hand touching the side of Sung’s. 

Periodically, Sung would call out things he heard- people walking past, cars stopping, the neighbors coming and going, their conversations by open windows. As the sun started to set, more people were out. Sung mentioned things with the same frequency, probably only noting things he thought were interesting. Children slowly riding bikes down the alleyway. People dragging patio chairs across a lawn, wood landing in a fire pit. Dogs barking and being shushed. The same children from earlier crying as they fell. 

Sung went quiet for a while before sitting up. Meouch stayed put. 

Awkwardly, unsure, Sung grabbed Meouch’s hand, squeezed it. 

“I feel a lot better now.”


End file.
